An NFL player who has made $37 million spends 12 hours a day working on his family farm in the off-season

Green Bay Packers wide receiver Jordy Nelson is in the second year of a four-year, $39 million contract and has already made $37 million in his career. But when the playoffs are over, he will return to his family farm in tiny Riley, Kansas, where every off-season he goes to put in a full day’s work.

In an interview for a recent issue of ESPN the Magazine, Nelson said he works up to 12 hours a day on the farm, driving a combine to cut wheat or rounding up the 1,000-cow herd in the town whose population is 992.

“Working cattle is my favourite farm duty,” Nelson told ESPN. He said he identifies “more as a farmer” than as a football player.

Nelson went on to say that in Riley he is “just the farm kid they have always known.”

After starring as a quarterback at Riley High School, Nelson walked on at nearby Kansas State, where he ultimately moved to wide receiver.

Since being drafted in the second round of the 2008 NFL draft, Nelson has caught 63 touchdown passes, including a league-leading 14 this season, and was a Pro Bowler in 2014.